Sunday, April 13, 2014

Carol Spooner: Statement on Current Crisis and the Future of Pacifica

Carol Spooner: Statement on Current Crisis and the Future of Pacifica

I strongly support Summer Reese in her position as Executive Director of Pacifica and in her efforts to preserve and protect the network and five Pacifica stations and their mission, and to prevent the total collapse of Pacifica into bankruptcy court, pay-off its debts, clean-up the corruption and financial mess, and rebuild.

Carol Spooner

I believe those Pacifica directors who voted to fire her without cause weeks after her contract was signed acted with gross abuse of their authority and have recklessly and/or intentionally placed Pacifica in grave peril. Some of them may just be acting out of cluelessness and factional malice. But others of them are not clueless, including Dan Siegel’s “SaveKPFA” allies at KPFA — Margy Wilkinson, Brian Edwards-Tiekert and Jose Luis Fuentes — and Lydia Brazon at KPFK and Cerene Roberts at WBAI. I’ve heard speculation and rumors about what their ultimate “end game” intentions may be, but whatever that is they are clearly attempting to force Pacifica into a position where desperate deals may have to be made that may not preserve and protect Pacifica’s mission.It is true that in August 2012 I circulated the outlines of a plan for an “amicable divorce” at Pacifica — by doing a signal swap for WBAI (which is in the commercial band) with another station down the dial in the NYC area and using the cash generated to endow an independent Pacifica national programming service as well as five independent nonprofit radio stations set up by the local boards at the five signal areas. You can read ithere:I still think that may be the best way forward, but reasonable people can disagree about that. I know that Summer Reese disagrees.

Reasonable . . . Unreasonable

What is not subject to reasonable disagreement is that firing the Executive Director, in breach of her contract, exposes Pacifica to serious risk of total collapse with little or no opportunity for an orderly resolution to its difficulties. As a side note, it’s easy to get lost in the cast of characters who have been involved in Pacifica, so I don’t blame Eric Jacobson for his confusion and mistaken characterizations of me and my role at Pacifica in his article here. I served on the Pacifica National Board for 3 years — from January 2002 through January 2005 — first on the “interim” Pacifica Board for 2 years after our lawsuit was settled removing the old corporatizing board. During that time I chaired the committee that re-wrote the bylaws creating a democratic Pacifica with a voting membership. I then served for one year on the first elected board, after which I retired from any formal role at Pacifica.Since then I’ve sent out occasional email commentaries over the years, and have supported those candidates who I believed were best suited to ending the enervating factionalism and rebuilding Pacifica for the “beacon of the Left” that it should be and needs to be in these times.Carol Spooner is a retired attorney living in Santa Rosa. She can be reached at wildrose@pon.net

Please Support Andrea Sears' Reporting

Unemployment insurance is running out for Andrea Sears of Left Voices, former WBAI/Pacifica News Editor, who was part of the WBAI staff layoffs last August. Despite some promising interviews, Andrea does not have a job yet, and would really appreciate your support.